Nationwide broadband emergency communications is the ultimate goal of first responders, says Deputy Chief James Dowd, the commanding officers of the NYPD communications division.

They want to “build out a nationwide public safety dedicated broadband network which give us all the capabilities, not just two-way voice like we do now, but would give us the ability to do video, data, any type of information that we need to share regionally or nationally, we would be able to do on this network.”

Much progress had been made in the ten years since 9/11, says Dowd, but he adds, “There’s still a lot of work that has to get done here.”

He wants emergency services to have the same kind of advanced communication that teenagers utilize on a regular basis with their smartphones.

Dowd says, “Police Commissioner Kelly just testified in Washington at a Senate hearing and one of his comments was that a 15-year-old has more communications capability than the average cop or firefighter has today and that’s just got to change.”